Araraume Joins PDP

By Charles Igbo

The political realignment in Imo State as the 2023 General Elections continued on Tuesday, March 15, 2022, when Ifeanyi Araraume Jnr, joined the People’s Democratic Party, PDP.

Making public his migration to the PDP, he said: “Today, I officially joined the PDP in my Ward. In everything I have done, I have tried my best never to be found wanting. I hope it remains so in this new journey.”

Araraume jnr is the son of Senator Ifeanyi Araraume, a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, APC. However, the Senator’s sojourn to the APC has not been smooth. At every corner, he has been dealt a deadly blow which only a man as politically strong as he is would withstand.

He roundly failed in his bid to represent Okigwe Zone – Imo North – in the Senate, a seat he worked very hard to sit on. The death of Senator Ben Uwajimogu created the vacancy. With the declaration of Senator Hope Uzodinma as Governor, Araraume, who had contested for the seat of the Governor under the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, gradually went back to the APC, from where he had decamped to APGA, for the sole purpose of vying for the Governor’s seat.

He tried, very much, to ingratiate himself to Governor Uzodinma so as to be backed for the Senatorial seat. But the Governor preferred the now Senator Frank Ibezim.

Ararume had the full support  of former Governor of Imo State, Senator Rochas Okorocha. But their combination was not strong enough to defeat Uzodinma’s candidate, even though two of them, ridiculously, contested under the APC because the Party held parallel Primary. It took the Courts to decide who really was the candidate of the Party. It went to Ibezim.

Having fallen out with the Governor over the Senatorial  seat, he fully joined Okorocha’s camp, a camp which till date, has refused to recognise the new  Executive of the APC in the State. Its members refused to take part in the APC membership revalidation exercise, making their membership of the Party suspect.

But, out of the blues, President Muhammadu Buhari appointed Senator Ararume the Chairman of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd, NNPC.  The appointment threw Ararume and associates into a wild jubilation. But he suffered one of the worst humiliations of his political career when his inauguration, and members of the Board, in Abuja, was called off at the last minute.

Weeks later, Buhari dropped Ararume, appointed a new Chairman, Senator Margery Okadigbo, and swore her and the other members in.

Since then, Senator Araraume  has been quiet.

Speculations have, however, been rife that he was on his way to defecting to the PDP with his associates. His son’s defection to the PDP on Tuesday, could be a first step to his.

Ararume jnr was a Commissioner in the Okorocha administration. He resigned when Okorocha fell out with his father over the 2019 Governorship candidate. Okorocha, to Araraume’s disappointment, preferred his son-in-law, Uche Nwosu to him or his son.

By decamping, Ararume jnr is only following the footsteps of his father who had decamped from the PDP, to AD, to APC, to APGA, and back to APC. His next bus stop is being awaited, especially, with his son’s movement.